User authentication is common to the vast majority of secure architectures. Knowledge based user authentication (password/PIN) is the most common authentication mechanism in use today. Such authentication is extremely weak and incurs high maintenance costs. Biometric authentication provides strong mechanisms that meet more stringent security requirements.
Biometric based authentication has been primarily relegated to fixed-mount systems or desktop/laptop platforms. With the advent of high-powered processing for mobile devices (e.g., PDA, hand-held scanner, etc.), it is now possible to perform biometric authentication on such mobile devices. In many cases the single largest issue is the availability of a sensor in these mobile device to read biometric information.